The war was hard on everything, he told himself.
The war changed people, he knew, war changed everything.
Everyone reacts in different ways, he convinced himself.
It was because they were the oldest two, he wanted to believe, it because of their age.
But the truth was Mr. Pevenise didn't understand what happened to his two oldest children. He left brave, hopeful, frightened children, and came home to sad, regretful, misplaced children, always with a faraway look in their eyes, always speaking in low whispers, and longing in their hearts.
It was months after his return to England, after the war had ended, when he started to notice the changes in his children. Changes that for Edmund and Lucy faded, but still clung to Peter and Susan like a haze of unhappiness.
He tried to talk to Peter first, he remembered. But deep sated anger was all he found, anger that wasn't directed at him, but present none the less.
Weeks later he smiled at his beautiful Susan and spoke to her of happy things. Happy things that his daughter seemed to be careless about. The mention of a future husband paled his daughter into a panic, she paled and she pleaded a headache.
He watched them sometimes, from the kitchen, as they sat in the garden together. All four would sit under the sun, talking for hours. But when the sun faded, only Susan and Peter would stay, their hands linked and voiced so low no one could hear.
He worried, he wondered, he wanted to help. But, he told himself, the war had changed everything, everyone reacted differently; it had been hard on everyone.
Mr. Pevenise, father of Peter and Susan Pevenise told himself all these things, but never once believe them.